On the run

Oh dear, it’s been a messy week. I’ve had to cancel important meetings with customers and even dismiss myself from an important training course, and I really hate doing that as it looks dreadful.

I have to warn you, from here on in the post gets somewhat … Ucky!

I’ve spent the week on the toilet.

It hasn’t been pleasant.

The timing was awful.

I’d hoped by Thursday that all would be sorted as I’d done my tried and tested stomach bug cure all and eaten nothing for 48 hours, so I manned up and got myself into London. I had an exam to take.

I’ve been doing some ‘at home teaching’, generally on the train in the mornings and I was ready to take the exams. The course I’m doing is in Project Management – Prince2 is the method that I’m learning. I’m not going into detail about it here as it’s a government approved project management method, and is neither interesting to talk about nor funny.

Thursday morning I was booked into taking the first part of the exam, or the Foundation level exam. If I passed that exam I would be on a 2 day refresher workshop followed on the Friday afternoon by the Practitioner exam.

It did not start well.

I arrived at the office feeling just plain wrong. I was nervous about the exam, I was also nervous about the way my guts were feeling, this was making it hard to concentrate. I found the door was on an electric lock, I pushed and slid the doors to no avail, but pressing the buzzer had no effect either. I started to flap, jabbing mercilessly at the buzzer, and looking at the pretty girl who was queued up behind me, giving her the “Can you believe this?” look of someone who clearly cannot be blamed for the current situation.

The girl gave me the “Is your carer somewhere close?” look, leant forward and pulled the door open. PULL? I’d not tried pulling! When I finally found my way to the classroom, she was sat in there as well, oh well; I must have looked like the kid in the classic Far Side cartoon.

The Foundation exam began and I struggled, I just couldn’t concentrate. I felt terrible but was determined. Eventually I managed to finish and quickly got the result back that I’d passed! Thank goodness for that.

However, it took exactly 2 minutes for the glass of fruit juice that I awarded myself to send me sprinting to the toilet. I knew that the sandwich that I had also eaten would not be far behind. I knew it was time to give up. I had to accept the facts; this was not doing anyone any good.

I made my excuses and left, the course would have to be rescheduled. I now had another mountain to climb. I had to get myself across London to Paddington before I’d be able to get to another toilet; the race was on.

I made it, but was starting to hurt. I sat on the train at Paddington, wincing as I desperately waited for us to leave the station. What is that rule all about anyway? Please don’t tell me that in this day and age we still just flush the toilets straight onto the line? The sticker said no flushing until out of the station though, so I felt bound to wait. With hindsight, what I should have done was use the dead time to scope out a good toilet, find one that was nearly clean, had toilet roll, soap, lock and running water. Doing a recce like that would have been a great idea, but instead I just sat near the first toilet I found and clenched.

After an eternity, the train set off and I threw myself into the toilet, noted the deeply unpleasant smell, rammed my foot against the door to act as a replacement lock for the clearly broken one on the door, and sat there! I suspect you can work the rest out.

Later on I found my way to the Doctor. I knew, as I sat and waited, that I was going to find this embarrassing. It’s always the same. When I go and see a doctor about my blood pressure, or a normal cold, or whatever, you can be sure that I will be seen by a man. He will be a normal man who will pat me on the back and suggest that beer and pies will probably cure me. If there is anything even slightly embarrassing to talk about though, I’ll get a woman.

A long time ago, back in 1998, I had a nasty boil turn up in a surprising place. It was a little painful and because of where it was (right on the undercarriage so to speak) I thought I’d better take no chances. So I took myself off to the GP. I walked in and she was HOT. The doctor was this Indian woman of similar age to what I was and was really, really sexy. She set her smouldering eyes right at me and asked what I wanted? I looked at her, whipped off my pants and said “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

From her expression, and the speed at which she put those gloves on, I’d say she had, but hadn’t really enjoyed it. It must of made her day to go into work that day and have me spread eagled on her bench, pointing at something no woman should ever be made to see. She never called.

Worse was to come after we went to Africa. Not too long after getting married we sold a car and decided to really have the holiday of a lifetime. I’ll write about it one day because the Safari was just amazing. However, part of what was included in the trip was some windsurfing lessons. It turned out that I am an appalling windsurfer. I just couldn’t stay on the board, and time and time again I kept on landing on the mast. I would land straddling the mast in quite a painful way, and wasn’t laughing much.

By the time we got home, I was in pain. Things had grown and were the wrong colour for me. It was like walking about with a football between my legs and it was a somewhat bruised and sore football. Eventually I plucked up the courage and went to the GP. This time she was not some hot young woman – oh no.

This time she was a full on Granny, complete with very grey hair and wobbly hands, which at least were warm. At one point she was knelt in front of me “cupping” and looking so closely that I had a moment’s lack of concentration. Luckily, I caught myself in time, looked up to the ceiling and started concentrating – fast!

And so here I am, explaining to a young Russian doctor all about my latest toilet based fun and she is nodding politely and explaining to me how I can maybe collect a sample for her! It’s all a bit much and I shake my head as she explains that she only wants ‘lumps’. The image of just how much trouble I will be in if my wife catches me walking into the toilet with the baking sieve, flashes across my mind.

She didn’t catch me though – so that’s a result.